Re: memantine-what does everyone think???

> hi, fed up off suffering from my long term anxiety w/depression-im considering using memantine to augment lamictal (which i start next week), what do people think and what are peoples experience with memantine.....i.e. is it worth the cost!!

I responded to memantine intermittently over the course of two weeks at a dosage of 20mg. I was taking Lamictal at the same time. Another person posting on PB experienced a more stable, albeit inadequate response to a low dosage of approximately 5mg. I can't recommend it, but I would not want to dissuade you from trying it either.

The NIH trial showed memantine to be ineffective in treating unipolar depression. They are still studying it for bipolar depression.

- Scott

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: Am J Psychiatry. 2006 Jan;163(1):153-5.

A double-blind, placebo-controlled study of memantine in the treatment of major depression.

OBJECTIVE: This study was designed to assess possible antidepressant effects of memantine, a selective N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist in humans. METHOD: In a double-blind, placebo-controlled study, 32 subjects with major depression were randomly assigned to receive memantine (5-20 mg/day) (N=16) or placebo (N=16) for 8 weeks. Primary efficacy was assessed by performance on the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS). RESULTS: The linear mixed models for total MADRS scores showed no treatment effect. CONCLUSIONS: In an 8-week trial, the low-to-moderate-affinity NMDA antagonist memantine in doses of 5-20 mg/day was not effective in the treatment of major depressive